McCain is Not Bush, Says Adviser

[Ron Burgundy]

CQPolitics.com - Republican presidential contender John McCain will be able to sufficiently distance himself from the unpopular president of his own party in the upcoming general election, according to a top adviser to the Arizona senator.

"He's not a protege of President Bush," said Charlie Black at a Christian Science Monitor gathering Friday. Black is a longtime Republican political operative, who is among McCain's closest advisers. As evidence of McCain's independence, Black offered McCain's prescription for a troop surge -- one that Bush ultimately embraced -- and his legislative efforts to address climate change.

While Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton continue to battle for the Democratic Party's nomination, the Democratic National Committee has been waging a campaign to tie McCain to Bush, whose numbers have plummeted to the point that just more than one-quarter of Americans say they approve of the job he is doing.

Whether McCain represents a continuation of the Bush administration or a new direction for the Republican Party is one of the few clear battlegrounds in a general election fight that has been delayed by the close Democratic primary.

Black declined to give a timetable on when McCain would pick a running mate, but strongly hinted that there will not be a repeat of 2000 when the head of Bush's vice presidential search committee, Dick Cheney, landed on the ticket. Instead, McCain will rely on his own counsel to find a partner.

"I think he's the chairman of the selection committee," Black said. "The No. 1 criteria," he said, is being able to "step in and serve" should something happen to the president.

As for the opposition, Black said he expects that McCain will face Obama in November but can't be sure that will be the case.

"Never count the Clintons out until they're out," he said.

Who should be John McCain's running mate? In our own version of the NCAA March Madness brackets, our team of political experts selected 32 possible nominees. Now it's up to you to vote to decide who will advance to face each other in the next round.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20080502/pl_cq_politics/politics2716302 [link]